Blog of the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research

Is Your Period A Sentence?

June 1st, 2012 by Elizabeth Kissling

My friend and colleague Patty Chantrill loves clever menstrual puns as much as I do, and recently snapped this picture of an area billboard from her car. I’ve edited the photo to try to highlight the sign, but there’s only so much one can do with a Blackberry in motion [clicking the image will show you a larger, slightly clearer version]. The sign features a photo of presumably female feet in high-heeled shoes, wearing a ball and chain, next to the words, “Does Your Period Feel More Like a Sentence? There’s Help.” This is followed by the name of a local women’s health clinic that shall remain unnamed.

Photo by Patty Chantrill

The clinic offers numerous treatments for heavy periods, including NovaSure endometrial ablation, a process of permanently removing the uterine lining with radio frequency, and HerOption cryoablation, which removes the uterine lining by freezing the tissue. I haven’t yet researched these procedures enough to form strong opinions for or against them, but I do have strong opinions about some of the other procedures offered by this clinic. They are providers of what their website terms ‘aesthetic gynecological surgery’, which includes such mutilations as labiaplasty, G-spot augmentation, vaginal rejuvenation, and ‘radiofrequency tightening’. Check out the price list for these crimes against womanity:

Labiaplasty: $4200 (surgery cost)*

Vaginoplasty: $6000 (surgery costs)*

Combined Labiaplasty and Vaginoplasty: $9400 (surgery cost)*

*IV sedation is done by a separately contracted CRNA and is $150 per hour.

May I recommend, again, Lisa Rogers’ documentary film, In Search of the Perfect Vagina? You can watch the film for no cost at all at either link, no insurance needed, and discover that you already have the perfect vagina.